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10 —- Wednesday, June 10, 1998 — North Shore News

Dear Editor:

There sure has been a flurry of misinformation lately in the North Shore News about Animal Advocates Society. After the latest broad- side was published from Stephen Huddart, the BC SPCA’s Director of Education (May 15 News letter to the editor), one of our supporters said that her friends thought I was just a common criminal. (I think I object to the appel- lation “common”.)

The original article that started all this broshaha, about the mother dog and nine pups that we rescued, had a couple of errors in it, in themselves not a big deal, but after Huddart’s diatribe, and a phone call from the North Vancouver RCMP, I guess the record should be set straight.

When asked about “dog rescue,” 1 repiy that there are many hundreds of dogs res- cued a ycar, and that no one has ever been caught (or at least not prosecur-d). I have met hundreds of (mostly) women who have told me that

‘ they once stole a dog because its suffering was unbearable to watch and they couldn’r get

the proper authorities to do anything to help it —- not

‘even so much as a word to the owner about humane care.

Every person who contacts us has already contacted the proper authoritics, sometimes for many years, and contrary to the SPCA’s constant asser-

tion that it’s mostly vindictive.

neighbors - who - complain, _ every single complaint we've “received has checked out to be just as awful as reported.

» yr These | “rescuers” are almost entirely middle-aged, “middle-class, law-abiding women, who say they'd do it again if they had to.

I applaud them for their humanity and courage, anc if the SPCA can’t publicly sup- port them, they. could at feast not attack them.

When I’m. asked by them, ‘what should [ do?,’ I rell chem to follow their conscience. The -rescue network is surprisingly large and when word gocs out

that a.dog needs help, there _ are.a fot of willing hands.

Often it’s not known who “exactly rescued the dog.

A case in point is a pit-bull ina “small, south-facing, “cement-floored cage in North Vancouver. The poor thing,

. whe has - already (suffered

through a winter, and who is

“innocently unaware of the even worse suffering he faces this summer, as he bakes in the oven he is trapped in, is the fourth dog this family has owned in the last several years, I’ve been told. All the others have disappeared. -

_. Animal Advocates didn’t even knaw about these dogs _ until’ recently, But the Vancouver’ SPCA in North : Vancouver ‘does.. More than one person has told them.

As for Mr. Huddart’s

euthanasia statistics — well, “there are lies, damned lies, “and statistics.” _ It’s true — the West Vancouver SPCA is run the ‘way every SPCA should be “run. ;

-:Animal _ Advocates has always praised the local board of this:no-kill shelter for hav- ing had the humanity and wis-

dom to reject a take-over attempt omade by the Vancouver SPCA in) the 1970s, and for refusing to take Vancouver's advice to go after a lucrative pound-keep- ing contract (become the dog-catcher) for = Wesr Vancouver, which would have meant they would be forced by the terms of a contract to kill dogs, and which they rightfully knew to be diamet- ricaly opposed to their humane mandate to be a safe place (a “shelter” in the truce sense of the word) for inno- cent, trusting blameless dogs.

In North Vancouver,

north shere news

MAIL Rox : North Shore animal advocate responds to critics -

where the Vancouver SPCA did repiace the local board (with the required sanction of the BC SPCA), and bid on, and won a contract to be the dog-catcher, the figures are very different, as Mr, Huddart points out.

Eight hundred dogs placed in their care last year, with 774 dogs adopted and only 26 killed, is very impressive, (especially as the head of the Vancouver SPCA in Burnaby, an areca. much larger than North Vancouver, was previ- ously quoted as saying thar they took in about 200 dogs).

I've never heard such

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impressive figures before, although sesmetimes it’s those silly statistics that are so con- tusing. The SPCA’s euthana- sia Hgures are usually based on only the number of “unadopt- able” dogs put down, and the definition of “unadoptable” is decided by the people doing the compiling of the statistics.

I wish I could agree with Mr. Huddart that ... “inspec- tors do not hesitate to lay charges where they are war- ranted”; the experience of thousands of distressed dog- lovers is that seldom is any- thing done ... and “that most abuse is caused by simple

ignorance”; we have found thar most abuse persists because abusers have no fear of consequences ... and “that the solution is education”; again we've been told repeat- edly by the distressed neigh- bor who has overheard the SPCA inspector talking, to the offending dog-owner, that there has been no attempt made to educate, not even when the situation cried out for it.

Mr. Huddart’s assertion that most owners of “rescued” dogs will simply get another implies that there’s ne point in helping the suffering you

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can see here and now, because

there might be future suffer- 2°:

ing. The rescue network's” . response to this often-repeat- > ed excuse to look the other . way is ... deal with it if it hap-

pens. In fact, uur information is that most people don’t get ” another dog, because at some

private level, they feel guilty about the way thev’ve treated |.

it, or they are fed up with angry, upset neighbors.

Judy Stone

West Vancouver

President, Animal Advocates Society 926-2068

anadbc@istar.ca .

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